Midterm History Paper Essay Examples

HIS 112-01

Frederick Turner Essay Analysis
Frederick Turner’s essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” provides an examination of how America’s characteristics were shaped by the aspect of frontiers. The essay traces how and what factors led to the birth of American frontiers. This paper will briefly explore how Turner’s premise represents the physical, intellectual, and spiritual development of American in the last decades of the 19th century. Beginning with physical development, Turner’s essay explains how Americans had a physical push to realize growth of their homes. Ideally, the 19th-century push for physical developments is likened to the scramble for Africa that occurred during the colonization period. During the late 19th century, America was a large unoccupied free land, and as the need to advance more into Westward so did developments occur. As people continued to enhance their frontiers, they made physical developments in terms of building houses, and developing the farmlands. Consistent developments made people to adapt slowly to themselves and, this led to the birth of complex cities that have infrastructural developments. As Frederick puts it, “to the changes involved in crossing a continent, in winning a wilderness, and in developing at each area of this progress out of the primitive economic and political conditions of the frontier into the complexity of city life.” This statement clearly explains how Americans felt they had achieved physical growth. Frederick statement reflects how Americans had made developments in converting a wilderness into a developed area where trade and, other social activities progressed. Once the Americans had realized growth of one frontier, they were pushed to start developments in other areas. Continuous physical developments transformed the once vast free land, into a great country that was admirable to foreigners. The physical transformations attracted foreigners especially traders who want to take advantage of the prime frontier areas.
Secondly, Fredericks premise reflects intellectual development of the 19th century Americans in many ways. Firstly, the need to have a better life motivated the Americans to think of ways to make life easier. Like, critical thinkers, the 19th century Americans researched on different ways that would make their live comfortable. Although each person had a unique goal to transform life, the overall initiatives taken by all Americans positively contributed to the improvement of social welfare. As Frederick puts it, the Americans had to develop ingenious ways of improving their lifestyle. For instance, for the livestock farmers who depended on meat, they had to develop a technique of preserving their meat. The farmers began salting their meat for preservation. Although one can argue this preservation technique was already practiced in other foreign nations. The 19TH century Americans were brave to implement an age-old idea into their lifestyle. The Americans also demonstrated intellectual growth through developing transport mechanisms that saw their goods move from one place to the other. For instance, the miners transport their minerals to the markets while, the farmers took their produce to the markets. As Fredericks indicates in the essay, the 19th century Americans marked the boundary between savagery and civilization. The Americans realized the old and primitive lifestyle was unproductive and, hence opted to change for civilization. They started living a civilized lifestyle that had a positive impact on their living standard. Besides that, they exhibited rationality in the way they interacted. For instance, when the threat of Indian traders invasion increased, the farmers and, fishermen had to accommodate French voyageurs so that they could access guns. The idea of seeking fertile grounds in the wilderness for purposes of engaging in farming demonstrated the Americans ability to understand productive farming.
Finally, Turner’s essay demonstrates American’s consistent spiritual development. Although not clearly defined, the 19th century Americans exhibited a great sense of spiritual development. Most of them were motivated to make the society a better place for every person.
The Americans had an internal push to effect reforms with the aim of creating a free and just society where every person could enjoy spiritual freedom. As Fredericks story suggests, the entry of traders completely revolutionized the way of life of the Americans. The interactions between the Americans and, traders changed their spiritual thinking. For instance, the European and French settlers influenced them to change to Christianity and, other modern religions. The Americans had to abandon the primitive savagery lifestyle that exhibited lack of a spiritual stand, and then started incorporating other religious ideals. Besides western nations influences, the events that transpired during the late 19th century made them realized spiritual developments. For instance, the frequent wars between traders, ranchers and, farmers boosted the Americans spiritual beliefs. Every win of the war enhanced their spiritual wellbeing since they thought a powerful figure was helping them succeed with life. The administrators of the 19th century also had a role in the spiritual development of the Americans. The government authorities that controlled the frontiers had policies that influenced the spiritual development of the Americans. This is because these governments borrowed some policies from Western nations such as England and, France that put emphasis on spiritual developments.